Detailed Chemical Abundances of Extragalactic Globular Clusters using High Resolution, Integrated Light Spectra.

Abstract

Globular clusters (GCs) are luminous, observationally accessible objects that are good tracers of the total star formation and evolutionary history of galaxies. We present the first detailed chemical abundances for GCs in M31 using a new abundance analysis technique designed for high resolution, integrated light (IL) spectra of GCs. This technique has recently been developed using a training set of old GCs in the Milky Way (MW), and makes possible detailed chemical evolution studies of distant galaxies, where high resolution abundance analysis of individual stars are not obtainable. For the 5 M31 GCs presented here, we measure abundances of 14 elements: Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Y, and Ba. We find the M31 GCs have ages (>10 Gyr) and chemical properties similar to MW GCs, including an enhancement in the α-elements Ca, Ti and Si of [α/Fe]∼+0.4. In this thesis, we also further develop this IL abundance analysis method to include GCs of ages 10 Myr-12 Gyrs using GCs in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), which contains the necessary sample of clusters over this wide age range. This work demonstrates for the first time that this IL abundance analysis method can be used on clusters of all ages, and that ages can be constrained to within 1−2 Gyr for clusters with ages of ∼2 Gyr and within a few 100 Myr for clusters with ages <1 Gyr. We find that we can measure [Fe/H] in clusters with ages <12 Gyrs with similar or only slightly larger uncertainties (0.1-0.25 dex) than those obtained for old GCs; the slightly larger uncertainties are due to the rapid evolution in stellar populations at these ages. Using the LMC clusters, we also investigate the effects of statistical fluctuations in the theoretical cluster stellar populations used in our analysis. We also develop strategies to allow for statistical variations in these stellar populations, and find that the stability of the Fe line abundance solution can provide tight constraints on the appropriate theoretical stellar populations. Detailed chemical abundances of 22 elements are reported for six LMC clusters.